Dragos Bucur pulls his gold teeth out for Rosia Montana

Just watch this. Uitati acest film.  Please.  Va rog.  It doesn't need translation

Rosia Montana FanFest from 15-19 August 2012.  Wish I could be there. 

And just to show that not all campaigners have the same colours,  follow this guy, Tica Darie, as he cycles across Europe in support of Salvati Rosia Montana.

UPDATE: BBC Radio 4 Crossing Continents on Rosia Montana - a very incisive and well-balanced report. 

Rosia Montana

Update: Resurgence has published an article I wrote about Rosia Montana and Romania's green movement, called Seeking the Light, September/October 2014.

In October 1998 I visited Rosia Montana, Romania's oldest town and the site of an extraordinary Roman gold mine.  Rosia Montana lies in the Apuseni Mountains, to the south-west of my latest shepherding adventures.  It is known as Verespatak in Hungarian - before joining Romania in 1918, this area was part of Hungary; in 1540 it belonged to the semi-independent principality of Transylvania, then it was a scion of the Habsburg Empire, and after 1867, Rosia Montana came under the dual monarchy of Austria Hungary. 

But in the mid-1990s, when I was researching the Blue Guide, mining prospectors began looking for sources of new gold in Rosia Montana.   

From the Roman period (106-271AD), gold and copper mining had continued in Rosia Montana and adjacent valleys - known as the Golden Quadrilateral - intermittently until the present day.  A French archaeologist, Beatrice Cauuet, even found evidence of pre-Roman workings in Rosia Montana.  They were pieces of wood which the Dacians had used in their own subterranean galleries.  The Dacians were an Iron Age people who inhabited the land that became the Roman province of Dacia. 

Under the communists, Rosia Montana's gold was extracted from open pits.  It was said that other, more valuable minerals were found there too, and people I spoke to remembered goods trains trundling across the country carrying uranium to the USSR.  I have had no way of proving this.  

By the mid-1990s, Rosia Montana was certainly a depressed looking place.  The government-run mines had virtually come to a standstill.  In the meantime, following the 1989 revolution, Romania had become a newborn state, and in the turmoil of transition, capitalism, predatory and otherwise, was taking over from a centralised economy.  As the Croatian writer, Dubravka Ugresic, puts it so succinctly,  "newborn states are more exciting than stable ones... [they] launder both dirty money and dirty secrets".  (From How I could have been Ivana Trump and where I went wrong, published in Orient Express, vol 3, 2003.)

I went to Rosia Montana to find out about its archaeology.  The Roman galleries with their chisel marks and straight sides were impressive, and the more recent diggings made by independent miners as well as those employed by the Habsburgs brought home how deeply mining culture had burrowed into the life of the Apuseni.  My guide led me up a forest track above the village and out into green pastures which gave an idyllic, panoramic view of the Apuseni Mountains.  He showed me the system of lakes and gulleys that powered the wooden stamp mills, one or two of which still stood in the little mining museum, alongside a magnificent piece of machinery from Erith in Kent. 

While visiting Rosia Montana I heard about the prospectors.   To cut a long story shorter, it turns out that Rosia Montana is still sitting on 300 tonnes of gold.  And people want to get it out.  People including Romania's president, Mr. Basescu.  People who say that getting the gold out by creating Europe's largest open pit will save the area, save Romania.  They say 'we can't let this gold stay in the ground'.  Their arguments should be convincing: they assure us that the gold mine will provide jobs and improve the lives of the locals out of all recognition, but by the way this will mean destroying 2000 homes, bulldozing a couple of mountains to the ground, and obliterating most of the remaining Roman - and not forgetting the Dacian - archaeology which has still not been fully investigated.  Oh, and it will mean installing a tank that is designed to hold up to 250 million tonnes of cyanide waste, all in a farming area and about ten miles from a town of 13,000 people.  On that first and on two or three later visits, I met worried villagers.  What they told me made me feel sick and I got involved in a campaign to stop the mine.

My friend Adela (not her real name) is a Romanian archaeologist who also got involved.  She believes in justice, fairness and honesty.  I stayed with her in late March on my way from Cluj to Salaj, before I began walking with sheep.  Adela is in her early 70s now, but her fighting spirit is undimmed.  But she was looking more stressed than I had ever seen her.  And some of the stress came from anxiety about the possible fate of Rosia Montana.  

I'm taking up the narrative from those few days that I spent in Cluj:

30^th March

Adela has been suffering from spondylosis and she had a headache; she was also preparing a paper for a conference in Bucharest about the – parlous, according to her - state of Romanian archaeology in cities.  So in spite of her ailments, she was going at full tilt.  Even though her own intellectual pursuits were so important, she was, as always, incredibly kind and helpful.  We went to her optician so I could find out how much it would cost to have some new glasses, she bought me a bag of mandarins, looked up the times of buses to Zalău, called a taxi and gave me a bottle of water, all so I could get off in time.  She lives with her sister, who paints religious icons in her spare time, and both were unstintingly generous.  I felt bad about landing on them when they are getting elderly and are under so much stress. 

Rosia Montana: an anxiety that won’t dissolve.

A lot of their worries are financial: the director of Adela’s archaeology institute forced her to retire even though she wants to continue working.  She is taking legal action against the decision, sensing that it has a lot to do with her outspokenness, especially in connection with the proposed open cast mine at Roşia Montana.  We have been down some of that road together but because she lives so much closer to the valley concerned, she is much more passionate about the devastation the pit will probably cause.   

Rosia Montana Gold Corporation, the mining company involved in the exploitation of Rosia Montana's gold and silver, is what's known in the trade as a junior.  That means it's a relatively small, relatively new, relatively inexperienced operation.  80% of RMGC belongs to Gabriel Resources (also a junior, registered on the Toronto stock exchange), and 19.3% to the Romanian Government.  RMGC promises jobs for local miners, it promises to clean up the damage left by the previous mining operations and recreate the landscape when it has taken all the gold it wants, and it promises to help promote tourism to the area.  It’s hard to see people wanting to visit a place which has been turned into a desert but there’s no accounting for freaks.    

Rosia Montana and nearby Abrud did look forlorn when I saw them in October 1996 -  although the autumn landscape didn't help - and they remain dogged by poverty.  Nobody could wish people there to suffer.  But is RMGC really such an angel?  Who are the ones who will become happy and prosperous under RMGC's plans?  What will people earn?  How many Romanians from the immediate area around the mine will be employed?  Who will monitor the discharges of dirty water?  And will the company really clean up after itself as it declares, reintroducing 'indigenous fauna and flora' to empty craters?   

Looking for ‘objective’ information on the net, I found Eddie O’Hara’s report to the European Parliament on 21^st December 2004.  Mr. O’Hara was a British Socialist MEP, and the general rapporteur on cultural heritage for the EU’s committee on culture, science and education.  Eddie O'Hara's report  

The report was rather dismissive of the objections to the open-cast mine, criticising ‘excessively fundamentalist’ academic arguments, and citing ‘modern mining techniques’ which have not been taken into account – without specifying what those techniques might be.  Referring to the company website,  I found that RMGC plans to build a lake to hold 215 million tonnes of cyanide tailings after the gold has been extracted using ‘conventional carbon-in-leach technology’.   It goes on to say that the lake will be designed to hold extra capacity (up to 250 million tonnes), the cyanide will be diluted to a maximum of 5-7 parts per million, below the EU/Romanian legal demand of 10 parts per million, and that 85% of the water used in the extraction process will be recycled and not discharged into the environment.  It says that the TMF, the tailings management facility, the tank (in other words, the tailings lake) will be able to resist earthquakes of 8 degrees on the Richter Scale and to stand up to ‘two consecutive 1 in 10,000 year rainfall events within 24 hours.’  I feel like taking a bow.  It would be impressive if you believe that the mine company will wave a magic wand and suddenly all Roşia Montana’s poverty will be a thing of the past, its blasted landscapes restored, its waters clean, not only from the communist mining operations but when RMGC has taken its 300 tonnes from the four pits, and hey presto the place will be full of dancing fawns and fit for children to play in.  Then why are people so passionately against it?  Surely they can’t all have vested interests?  You can see some of the reasons why if you switch to this link, Maia Morgenstern on YouTube

Leaping back to Mr. O’Hara in 2004: he underlined the economic benefits the mine would bring to the area, but he did state that RMGC had been vague about how it was going to provide them.  Since then we’ve had the ‘economic crisis’ of 2008 – some people had been feeling the 'crisis' long before then – and Romanians have had to put up with drastic cuts in their salaries and pensions (although in 2012 these have been partially restored).  Using the unconvincing rubrik that we must all 'tighten our belts' - did you see any highly-paid politicians and bankers doing this? - the Romanian president has been telling everyone that they’ve got to accept Roşia Montana or else.   

There is a perception that the anti-mine campaign is run by fetele (the girls), i.e. a group of girls: immature, emotional people whose arguments can safely be ignored.  It’s true that a handful of outspoken, well-informed and courageous young women, including Romanians and foreigners, have taken key roles in the fight against the mine project.   In the late 1990s I spent time with some of them, going to a peaceful protest that was held in Roşia Montana itself.  It was one of the most inspiring episodes of my life.  Believing in the warnings, the history of mining tragedies that have happened and are still happening all over the world, my partner and I contributed what we could.  But I couldn’t keep up the pace and I had to earn a living so I pulled back.       

After all the bullying, the name-calling, and 15 years of debate in the media and battles in the law courts (trials which were initiated for the most part by fetele, who were surely too childish to undertake such rational procedures?), sceptics like me and many of my Romanian friends are still dubious about the long-term benefits of a quick Rosia Montana fix.  

According to Romanians who have studied the case and are against the mine, the numbers of jobs provided for locals will be few and short-term.  And all the time I'm trying to envisage a scenario in which armies of diggers bring ready-made landscapes, complete with the right types of soil, its molecular infrastructure intact, so that an indigenous Apuseni landscape will reappear as if nothing had happened.  If I shut my eyes I can see the diggers, but they aren't replacing any blue-remembered mountains. 

RMGC has been singing its own praises on tv commercials that run on several Romanian channels: during my three days in Cluj I watched the telly quite a lot – we don’t have it at home! – and noticed the gold mine ad coming up again and again.  I didn’t count its frequency but it seemed intrusive.  Especially since while vaunting its virtues, RMGC has been tightening its stranglehold on Romanian journalists – the quid pro quo for receiving the advertisement is not to criticise the mine.   I don’t know how this clause is worded or if it even exists, but it’s common knowledge that broadcasters who want to criticise RMGC’s plans, however reasonably, are put off from the start.  Such behaviour goes hand-in-hand with the information that while maintaining with its hand on its heart that Rosia Montana has no other alternatives but to accept the mine, RMGC has - allegedly! - stamped on any other initiatives, small new farming ventures and the like, that might threaten its position as the only true begotten Lady Bountiful of Rosia Montana.  Once again, I have no direct proof of this but it wouldn't surprise me in the least. 

It’s only 23 years since Romania was ruled by a culture of fear.   Superficially that era is over.   Wall-to-wall political debates monopolise at least two of the country’s tv channels practically every night.   The vociferous arguments, the mud-slinging and shouting – there is laughter too - are signs of some kind of democracy, but after a while the discussions just seem to go round and around, getting nowhere: you get the feeling that there are puppet-masters behind the talking heads and the same old are in charge. 

Since then, a huge amount of work has been done to publicise the project on the world stage: RMGC has hired a sophisticated media team to highlight the pros, while the anti mine campaigners have brought off their own coups, including bringing in famous personalities such as the Britisg actress, Vanessa Redgrave, who was one of many individuals who bought plots of land to prevent RMGC from swallowing the entire town.  

The original protest group of villagers from Roşia Montana has changed.  One of its most tireless leaders was Mrs Ruxandra Manta, a retired history teacher who lived in the village itself.  I met her twice.  She was extraordinarily open to me, eloquent in her conviction that the mine company meant her community no good.  

The second time we met, she was much less confident.  In fact Mrs Manta was shaking; you could touch her fear.  We went to see a place in the heart of the village, beside one of the main roads, where she claimed that prospectors from Gabriel Resources had been digging up the land, causing landslides which made people's gardens collapse.  It was shocking and the implications of having to cope with strangers who would act with such bare-faced affrontery, all with the apparent connivance of the village mayor, made it easy to understand why this lioness was quaking in her boots.  

Mrs Manta died of cancer in about 2003.  Her husband who had worked for the communist-run mine and was an employee of Gabriel Resources when we met him, said her illness had been brought on by anxiety.  The trouble is he couldn’t prove it.  So I was gladdened to find this memorial to her, a video of the woman herself speaking about Rosia Montana: to see it, click on Mrs Ruxandra Manta

Alburnus Maior, the organisation that Roxy Manta helped to found, also recruited Stephanie Roth.  Stephanie comes from a Swiss-French background but was brought up in Britain.  She had previously helped to prevent the Dracula Theme park being built in a forest of 500-year old oak trees near Sighisoara.  She took Roşia’s case to the World Bank, and she won the Goldman Environmental Prize for her work on behalf of Roşia Montana.  Stephanie was not paid for her involvement in the campaign.  Nor, incidentally, was I.  Several other people from Roşia Montana joined the organisation including a farmer and former miner, Eugen David, who is its president.  It’s lovely to see that visitors have been flocking to his pensiune, Tarina, in solidarity with the campaign.  If you read Romanian you will find out more here: Eugen David's new pensiune.

Alburnus Maior still exists but it has split into several disparate organisations.  I'm afraid this has weakened its impact.  But the message comes across loud and clear from the organisation's website, Salvaţi Roşia Montana, which is Alburnus Maior's main mouthpiece, with versions in English as well as Romanian: click on http://rosiamontana.org.

To ignore the cloud that hangs over the Apuseni Mountains – and has already burst in terms of acid mine drainage from the previous, communist-era pit and quarries in other parts of the mountains must surely be dangerous.  The precedents of mine companies offering people the earth and delivering hell are too numerous to mention.   You could well say, it's none of our business: we have roofs over our heads and food in our bellies.  I got involved because I couldn't bear the intimidation, the lies, and the conviction that Romanians will regret selling their heritage for a mess of potage.  Once the mine starts it will be too late to save what's left of Rosia Montana, and their children and grand-children will ask why on earth they let it happen.  I don't want Adela dying in the same way as Roxy.  All I can do is pass the word on.  All we - not - like sheep.   

UPDATE: 22 November 2013, following the Romanian Senate's vote against the gold mine, Stuart Meikle has posted another very interesting article in Romania-Insider

Since the Romanian president has given the go-ahead for the open cast mine, Cotideanul has had the courage to print these articles:
 http://www.cotidianul.ro/pentru-generatiile-viitoare-221317/
http://www.cotidianul.ro/un-act-de-tradare-nationala-221233/ 

And in case something happens to the Cotidianul page, here is the first article in full:  

23 august 2013, la TVR 1, emisiunea ecomomică a domnului Moise Guran; a fost la Roşia Montana şi, contra cost, un inginer minier l-a condus să viziteze minele romane.
Aflăm nu doar că ai ce vedea la Roşia Montana, ci şi că inginerul - miner din tată în fiu - a zis “Dă-i dracului de munţi, avem destui”. Oamenii vor să facă minerit, chiar dacă acesta este făcut cu buldozerul şi cu cianuri, nu aşa cum l-au făcut părinţii şi stramoşii domnului inginer!
Se tot afirmă că locuitorii din Roşia Montană sunt muritori de foame fără începerea mega-proiectului iniţiat de Frank Timiş imediat după 1997. Nimeni nu pomeneşte de drama comunităţii de la Roşia Montana sudată printr-o convieţuire seculară, indiferent de etnie şi religie. La Roşia Montana mai sunt câteva familii care fac parte din această comunitate; marea parte a comunităţii a cedat presiunii zilnice începute din 2000 şi tentaţiei unei “îmbogăţiri” cu preţul de cumpărare oferit de Firma ce încă nu avea nici o avizare sau forma legală de a începe exploatarea.


Au rămas în zonă acei locuitori veniţi din patru colţuri ale României în momentul în care N. Ceauşescu a scos de pe Lista Monumentelor masivul Cetate şi l-a aruncat în aer pentru a scoate minereul ce conţinea aur...
Proiectul Firmei Roşia Montană Gold Corporation (RMGC) a putut face primii paşi printr-o mişcare aranjată de cei de la Agenţia Naţională (?) de Resurse Minerale, care au acordat licenţa de exploatare firmei româneşti Minvest. Printr-o asociere “desigur absolut dezinteresată”, şefii firmei Minvest au transferat licenţa firmei lui Frank Timiş. Roşia Montană Gold Corporation a devenit posesoarea licenţei cu care se făcea exploatarea de la Roşia Montană, cea începută de comunişti în masivul Cetate (“Licenţa de exploatare nr. 47 a fost transferată pe baza Legii Minelor 61/1998, Art. 14 de la Minvest la RMGC [RMGC ca titular, Minvest rămânând companie afiliată] - prin Ordinul Agenţiei Naţionale pentru Resurse Minerale [ANRM] Nr. 310/9.10.2000, publicat în M.O. Partea I, Nr. 504/13.X.2000.” - Grupul pentru Salvarea Roşiei Montane din Academia de Studii Economice Bucureşti, 11 februarie 2010)

Nu am să înţeleg, şi nimeni nu mi-a putut explica, de ce, dacă licenţa de exploatare pentru mina în suprafată de la Roşia Montană aparţinea firmei RMGC, totuşi statul român a subvenţionat mineritul aici până în 2006, când la iniţiativa RMGC s-a cerut închiderea minei!

Probabil cu înţelegerea “patrioţilor” de la Agenţia (naţională) de Resurse Minerale Firmei i s-a facilitat explorarea tuturor zăcămintelor naţionale din zona Roşiei Montane, statul “administrând păgubos” exploatarea aurului. Know how-ul experţilor firmei posesoare a licenţei n-a fost în stare să facă profitabilă exploatarea din Cetate doar pentru că era de 13 ori mai mică decât cea care se vrea demarată?
Pe vremea când arheologii îşi propuneau reprezentanţii în Comisia Naţională de Arheologie (CNA), am făcut şi eu parte dintre cei aleşi şi am luat cunoştinţă nemijlocit de cererea lui F. Timiş, adresată în toamna 2000 de a se da avizul pentru zona unde şi-a propus să exploateze tot aurul munţilor, în mai puţin de două decenii. Ne-a pus pe masă câteva volume cu poze făcute cu ocazia unor cercetări începute în 1999 de cercetători “angajaţi” direct, fără avizul necesar al CNA. Fără nici o tresărire de etică profesională, concluziile cercetărilor prezentate erau că totul era în stare de “colaps şi precolaps”, deci se propunea avizarea minei în suprafaţă. Cu două exceptii, toţi membrii CNA au respins avizarea cerută de “investitor”.

Puterea de “convingere” a investitorului, care fusese la şedinţa comisiei monumentelor CNMI, s-a concretizat în mai multe măsuri succesive luate de noua conducere a Ministerului Culturii (acad. Răzvan Theodorescu) care prin legislaţia creată abia sub ministrul Ion Caramitru reprezintă Statul garant pentru protejarea monumentelor istorice, patrimoniului arheologic şi cultural al României.

Membrii incomozi ai Comisiei Naţionale de Arheologie şi ai Comisiei Naţionale a Monumentelor Istorice au fost înlocuiţi cu cei ce se subordonau complet deciziilor funcţionărimii din minister.

În condiţiile în care exista Legea 5/2000, Anexa 3 prin care Roşia Montana în întregime, dar în special galeriile romane şi casele din centrul istoric erau identificate ca “valori de patrimoniu cultural de interes naţional, monumente istorice de valoare naţională excepţională”, existau toate motivele pentru a se exclude distrugerea lor prin lucrări de minerit la suprafaţă. Totuşi, Ministerul Culturii şi Cultelor a iniţiat un Program Naţional de Cercetare “Alburnus Maior” cu scopul declarat de a desfiinţa din punct de vedere juridic protecţia monumentelor şi siturilor din zona Roşia Montană (s-au dat descărcări de sarcină arheologice fără ca cercetările să fi fost finalizate; într-una din aceste zone “descărcate” cercetările au descoperit faimosul mormânt ce va rămâne martor singuratic al nenumăratelor necropole ale minerilor ce se vor excava ca să stoarcă aurul).

RMGC a făcut cunoscut un rezumat tehnic al proiectului său şi a organizat repetate “dezbateri” cu publicul pentru a-l convinge cât de benefic şi important este să permiţi exploatarea completă a resurselor minerale din perimetrul Roşia Montana şi Bucium.

Era deja în 2003, ştiam că orice problemă ridicam serveşte celor ce fac PR în favoarea exploatării să “cosmetizeze” proiectul. Dacă iniţial în proiect NU exista nici o referire la intenţiile de a proteja patrimoniul din zonă (doar era în colaps!), acum se erijau în cei care sponsorizează cercetări, acolo unde noi românii nu am fost în stare să le facem....

La Cluj, în dec. 2003, am participat la o astfel de dezbatere la care erau şi colegii care făceau cercetările arheologice în cadrul programului Alburnus Maior. Nu m-am referit la aceste cercetări, ci l-am întrebat pe Richard Hill, atunci reprezentantul firmei, dacă avem dreptul să exploatăm tot aurul şi să lăsăm moştenire generaţiilor viitoare doar resturile mega-exploatării şi întreţinerea haldelor cu reziduuri toxice. Răspunsul foarte corect al domnului Hill a fost că doar Statul român poate aprecia această chestiune. Trebuie să fi fost mare supărare căci susţinătorii RMGC (Goldului) din interiorul breslei m-au ameninţat oficial că voi mai lua poziţii contra exploatării doar în calitate de ”casnică”. A durat ceva până şi-au pus ameninţarea în operă, dar am mai “cârtit” cerând mereu Autorităţilor să nu mai permită încălcările legii care se făceau pentru a pregăti exploatarea păguboasă şi murdară a aurului, prin distrugerea peisajului minier de valoare excepţională.
La un deceniu după, aflu că, “în cazul opririi proiectului, statul român va trebui să acorde despăgubiri companiei” (Mădălin Voicu, Sinteza şedinţei din 17 iunie a..c. a Comisiei permanente comune a Camerei Deputatilor şi Senatului pentru relaţia cu UNESCO).

La aceleaşi despăgubiri făcea referinţă şi domnul Guran în emisiunea sa de la Televiziunea Română, comentând vizita unei delegaţii a acestei Comisii şi a domnului ministru al Culturii la Roşia Montană, în 20 august a.c. Afirmativ, România nu mai poate da înapoi căci aşa cum explica interlocutorul său de pe Facebook,s-a ţesut pas cu pas o “plasă” din care nu mai putem scăpa - iniţial autorităţile locale, apoi cele statale până la Preşedinte au fost subjugate interesului celor care vor să demoleze cei patru munţi din Roşia Montană.

Din 2000, sunt martorul acestor paşi prin care începând cu funcţionarii de la Agenţia de Resurse Minerale (numai naţională nu s-a dovedit!), de la Ministerul Culturii, de la Ministerul Mediului, primarul din Roşia Montana şi apoi alţii din Ţara Moţilor (doar firma lui F. Timiş s-a dezmembrat pentru a face proiecte în tot Cadrilaterul Aurului, nu s-a rezumat doar la perimetrul Roşia-Bucium, au licenţe la Certej [Săcărâmb]-Brad, Bolcana, Voia, Muntele Rotund etc.) fac tot ce li se cere din partea “investitorului”.

Statul Român, prin reprezentanţii săi, a devenit cel care îşi trădează interesul ca să servească profitul unei firme private. Gabriel Resources şi-a făcut capital punând la bursă acţiuni pe care le-a vândut afirmând că proiectul implică şi Statul Român. Din vânzarea acestor acţiuni, Statul Român nu a beneficiat cu vreun cent. Ba, a devenit dator Firmei că n-a putut mări capitalul atunci când ea a binevoit să o facă!
Invocând la bursă o anume garantare din partea Statului Român, Gabriel Resources a împărţit cu largheţe capitalul în “sponsorizări” pe care nu le socoteşte nimeni (DNA sau alţii asemenea) ca fiind conflict de interes şi ilegale.

Din cele afirmate în cunoştinţă de cauză (?) de deputatul Mădălin Voicu şi de economistul Moise Guran, avem a trage concluzia că nu ne putem lua dreptul de a refuza proiecte NOCIVE din punct de vedere economic, de mediu şi cultural ca să nu plătim despăgubiri. Într-un stat de drept, justiţia s-ar sesiza şi ar merge să vadă în responsabilitate cui stau toate acele “îngăduinţe” care îi permit acum “Investitorului” să ne ceară despăgubiri deşi nu a făcut altceva decât să îşi servească interesul (în mod incorect şi agresiv!!) atunci când a cheltuit sute de milioane de dolari.

Investitorul NU a “sponsorizat” cercetările, investitorul a indeplinit o prevedere legală pentru orice iniţiator care vrea să obţină un aviz de construcţie. Legea NU obligă să se acorde descărcarea de sarcină arheologică doar pentru că s-au finanţat cercetările ”preventive”. Potrivit legii (Ord. 43/2000 republicată 2007 art.7, a,c), în funcţie de rezultate – şi aici ele au fost excepţionale, aşa cum ştiau cei care au inclus Roşia Montană în Legea 5/2000 pe baza căreia se protejează şi conservă generaţiilor viitoare cele de valoare naţională (în cazul nostru chiar mondială!). Presiunile făcute abuziv de investitor sunt puse în evidenţă prin faptul că Avizul de descărcare de sarcină arheologică a masivului Cârnic, unde se află cele mai spectaculoase rezultate ale cercetărilor miniere, a fost anulat definitiv şi irevocabil prin hotărâre judecătorească în 2008. Pentru Firma şi pentru cei subjugaţi intereselor ei din Comisia Naţională de Arheologie şi Ministerul Culturii nu contează hotărârea judecătorească – şi în dispreţul prevederilor legale au “redactat” un nou aviz de descărcare de sarcină arheologica pentru acelaşi Masiv Cârnic şi desfiinţând toate galeriile romane de valoare unică şi excepţională şi cele din preistorie până în zilele noastre pe un pumn de bani “risipiţi” şi pentru care Statul va plăti daune....
Sigur cercetările, chiar cele mai extinse într-un sit minier roman, şi publicarea rapoartele săpăturilor nu au costat sute de milioane de dolari. Şi, contrar obligaţiilor legale, rezultatele cercetărilor de suprafaţă nu au fost protejate şi conservate, căci în PUG terenul pe care s-au descoperit intra în perimetrul de dezvoltare a proiectului minier deşi acesta nu fusese nici măcar avizat...

Firma a achiziţionat mai toate monumentele din centrul istoric al Roşiei Montane; am asistat cu spaimă la degradarea lor; Monumentele au prin lege o zonă de protecţie. Firma şi-a permis să demoleze ceea ce a considerat ea că stă în calea “proiectului”, desfiinţând contextul care forma un ansamblu istoric, produs al dezvoltării sociale şi economice. Centrul istoric devenit proprietate RMGC a ajuns într-adevăr în stare de “precolaps”.

Organizaţiile nonguvernamentale au început să restaureze monumente rămase comunităţii care se opune exploatării şi “relocării”, ceea ce n-a încăput pe mâna investitorului NEAUTORIZAT; abia atunci RMGC a intervenit cu mult ciment, schimbând structural monumente într-o pseudo-restaurare.

Doar cineva pentru care Convenţiile ratificate de Statul Român şi legile naţionale rămân necunoscute sau de aruncat la coş, doar acei reprezentanţi ai Statului Român pot lua în serios programul de protecţie a patrimoniului arheologic şi cultural preconizat de Gold Corporation.

Scandalos este că s-au găsit academicieni “independenţi” care deţin ştiinţă, nu şi conştiinţă, care laudă acest program “mărinimos” deoarece “va salva” exclusiv ceea ce iese din perimetrul pe care se va face exploatarea în suprafaţă a aurului, unde nu îşi construiesc “uzina”, unde nu pun haldele de steril şi nu fac lacul de acumulare a resturilor de la cianurarea minereului.

Tot ce “protejează” şi vor să propună “turismului” se va afla într-un peisaj lunar cu munţii excavaţi prin explozii şapte zile din şapte, an de an, pe drumuri pe care se vor transporta containerele cu cianuri (căci zilnic se vor utiliza câteva tone); fără îndoială turiştii vor face un pelerinaj la barajul de arocamente înalt de 180 m la 2 km deasupra Abrudului, care trebuie să reziste la o cantitate uriaşe de mâzgă cu reziduuri de la procesarea aurului.... Desigur acei turişti vor fi dornici să guste apa care va conţine “mai puţină cianură decât o ceaşcă de cafea” şi vor fi întâmpinaţi de minerii îmbogăţiţi de pe urma mărinimiei Investitorului!
Aceeaşi “mărinimie” a unui alt investitor cu nume puţin schimbat, dar tot specialist în exploatarea aurului în suprafaţă, se va manifesta în tot Cadrilaterul Aurului concesionat cu inimă deschisă de funcţionărimea de la Agenţia (Naţională) de Resurse Minerale!

Nici o instituţie a statului ”beneficiar al mărinimiei” celor care ne  vor face serviciul să ne îmbogăţească cu câteva procente din aurul care există în munţii noştri nu vrea să vadă câţi din cei care au dat concesiuni şi licenţe pe bogatiile subsolului - proprietate publică inalienabilă (Constitutia, 2003 art 137) au făcut saltul direct în statul de plăţi ale celui care le-a primit...

Nu mai avem dreptul nici să punem problema dacă rămâne sau nu generaţiilor viitoare ceva din ce se ascunde în măruntaiele pământului nostru!

Şi ne întoarcem la emisiunea lui Moise Guran care ne-a mai spus că parlamentarii din Comisia pentru Unesco care au mers la Roşia Montana au fost ghidaţi cu multă artă de angajaţii firmei RMGC să vadă doar ceea ce se va “proteja” şi au fost întâmpinaţi de locuitorii “paşnici” dispuşi să pună la zid pe oricine ar fi avut de propus o alternativă la Proiectul neasemuit de propice dezvoltării locurilor de muncă...

Am fost sfătuită, cu un deceniu în urmă, de unul dintre savanţii străini dornici să salveze patrimoniul de importanţă mondială de la Alburnus Maior să mă adresez domnului Christopher Grayson (Head of Secretariat Culture, Science and Education Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe); şi cum ampla informare asupra situaţiei i-a stârnit interesul, a solicitat un răspuns şi din partea Parlamentului român, care a propus o vizită de informare; am fost printre cei invitaţi să participăm la vizita făcută de raportorul EddieO’Hara şi Ch. Grayson la Roşia Montana. Ca experţi, împreună cu prof. Ioan Piso şi dr. Horia Ciugudeanu am aşteptat toată ziua, până la ora 17, să fim în contact cu delegaţia Comisiei de Cultură. Evident până la acea oră delegaţia a făcut turul cercetărilor arheologice condusă de angajaţii firmei de arheologie ai Gold Corporation şi şefii programului “Alburnus Maior”, cei care au propus avizul de descărcare de sarcină arheologică a tot ce au cercetat până la acea dată, cu excepţia unui mormânt roman. Corect ar fi fost ca fiind de faţă să ne spunem observaţiile critice privind scopul programului de cercetare şi nevoia conservării vestigiilor vieţii minierilor romani.

La ora 17, după ce am semnat o declaraţie pe proprie răspundere că intrăm în galeriile Cârnic, după ce am luat echipamentul de protecţie, a apărut un şef RMGC care ne-a zis că nu avem aprobarea să intrăm în galerii. La protestul meu vehement, înregistrat şi de domnii Grayson şi O’Hara, ni s-a îngăduit să facem vizita ghidaţi de dna Dr. Beatrice Cauuet, arheologul minier căruia i se datorează minunatele rezultate.

Uimirea în faţa galeriilor săpate doar cu dalta şi ciocanul, în faţa ştiinţei cu care au făcut romanii exploatarea, probabil ca urmare a adoptării tehnicii folosite anterior de supuşii regelui dac, mândria de a avea în ţară o astfel de bogaţie are să mă urmărească mereu şi îmi dă imboldul să continui să cer salvarea lor! În ziua următoare era prevăzută întâlnirea cu localnicii care se opun proiectului. Probabil o neconcordanţă în programul celor de la RMGC a făcut ca aproape o oră membri ai comunităţii, localnicii care refuză să părăsească locurile natale, membrii Asociaţiei Alburnus Maior şi-au spus punctul de vedere şi-au afirmat durerea că sunt supuşi unei presiuni permanente să accepte să-şi vândă proprietăţile şi să lase frâu liber exploatării. În momentul în care a început să-şi spună cuvântul prof. I. Piso a izbucnit în sala Primăriei un puhoi de “mineri” veniţi cu autobuzele. Spaima s-a întipărit pe faţa domnului O’Hara, care după câteva minute a ridicat “întâlnirea”. Această experienţă privind “organizarea” de către experţii RMGC a vizitei de informare “obiectivă” sub apanajul parlamentarilor mă îndreptăţeşte să susţin punctul de vedere al membrilor asociaţiei localnicilor şi a Asociatiei Heritage, care au refuzat să meargă în clădirea primăriei vechi, astăzi ”cedată” RMGC, unde nu ar fi reuşit să scoată o vorbă fără a fi bruiaţi de masa de manevră adusă pentru a susţine nevoia locurilor de muncă - câte locuri de munca şi pe ce perioadă?! Cei norocoşi să le ocupe nu vor avea anii necesari pensionării...

Începând din 2002, Academia Română, specialiştii români şi străini în protecţia monumentelor, în protecţia mediului, geologi şi ingineri minieri au pus în evidenţă motivele pentru care acest proiect este dăunător intereselor României din punct de vedere economic, social şi cultural.

Singura consecinţă a fost ignorarea de către reprezentanţii temporari ai poporului român din ministere şi Parlament a acestor puncte de vedere susţinute cu argumente decisive.

Nici una din propunerile venite din partea specialiştilor de a se respinge din start proiectul aberant prin proporţii şi soluţiile ce ignoră legislaţia naţională şi mondială privind protecţia mediului şi a patrimoniului imobil şi spiritual nu a fost luată în considerare. Nu s-a ţinut cont că proiectul de dezvoltare pe doar două decenii nu se poate considera dezvoltare durabilă, că nicăieri aceste exploatări nu au avut ca rezultat dezvoltarea şi prosperitatea comunităţior locale. Acum ni se spune, fără să cunoaştem clauzele secrete ale Contractelor, licenţelor acordate, că este obligatoriu să faci o crimă de mediu şi să distrugi un patrimoniu unic într-o regiune care are toate elementele să trăiască din resursele proprii, dacă nu i-ar fi fost limitată existenţa prin declararea în 2002 a zonei ca zonă monoindustrială, la dispoziţia celui care a plătit Planul de Urbanism General (PUG).
Nu sunt economist, dar cu bun-simţ poţi prevedea că orice despăgubire impusă de nişte contracte încheiate în defavoarea statului şi poporului român va fi mult mai mică decât pagubele pe termen lung pe care le va produce exploatarea resurselor minerale din perimetrul concesionat lui F. Timiş, azi la dispoziţia firmei RM Gold Corporation şi Gabriel Resources.

Epuizarea zăcămintelor de aur şi argint, precum şi a celorlalte metale rare afectează dezvoltarea viitoare a societăţii româneşti; deteriorarea peisajului de un pitoresc deosebit, protejarea doar a unei infime părţi din patrimoniul cultural vor exclude dezvoltarea regiunii prin turism cultural şi ecoturism. Generaţiile viitoare rămân să gestioneze un iaz cu deşeuri toxice de 600 ha creat într-o vale cu soluri permeabile de unde se vor scurge necontrolat în apa freatică. Va trebui să supraveghezi şi consolidezi stăvilarul de la gura lacului ca să împiedeci accidentul care ar înghiţi Abrudul şi tot ce este în aval. Tragedia de la Certej, ascunsă poporului prin grija securităţii, s-ar putea repeta la o scară nemăsurat mai mare.

Acestea sunt perspectivele pentru moştenirea pe care o pregătim generaţiilor viitoare!
Premierul a afirmat ca Parlamentul este singurul care va putea hotărî dacă se va începe proiectul preconizat de Gabriel Resources şi firma RMGC.

Dacă distinşii nostri reprezentanţi şi-ar lua răgazul să citească cele scrise de savanţi, experţi în economie, geologie şi protecţia patrimoniului, dacă şi-ar lua timpul să citească legile româneşti şi europene, dacă nu s-ar gândi să schimbe aceste legi ca să se potriveasca interesului unor profitori agresivi, nu ar trebui să ne fie teamă şi am putea spera că şi urmaşii urmaşilor noştri se vor bucura de dreptul la patrimoniu naţional (aici includ şi avuţiile naturale, nu numai cea culturală identitară!), la un mediu curat, la proprietate netulburată, la dezvoltarea în parametri tradiţionali.

Un Stat membru al Consiliului Europei care ”ia măsurile necesare pentru aplicarea dispoziţiilor Convenţiei în ce priveşte aportul patrimoniului cultural la edificarea unei societăţi paşnice şi democratice, precum şi în procesul de dezvoltare durabilă şi de promovare a diversităţii culturale” (Convention-cadre du Conseil de l'Europe sur la valeur du patrimoine culturel pour la société, Faro, 27.X.2005 art 1, d al 1).

Ai putea crede că avem de a face cu reprezentanţii unui Stat partener al Convenţiei Patrimoniului Mondial interesaţi să identifice şi să propună în Lista patrimoniului mondial bogăţiile culturale specifice poporului lor. Au chiar grijă să antreneze şi societatea civilă, Asociaţiile nonguvernamentale (ONG) în acest proces...
Avem doar o Comisie parlamentară care se preocupă de acest domeniu şi susţine acţiunile mature ale ministerului de resort, cel care are monopolul propunerilor de înscriere şi de protecţie a bunurilor de valoare universală. Avem şi autorităţi locale mândre să deţină astfel de valori de interes mondial!

Numai că toate astea sunt de faţadă, servesc să lase bună impresie celor care nu au timp să ia act de starea lucrurilor, primesc informaţii mai mult sau mai puţin “obiectivizate” de grupuri de interes.

Încă din 2002 în scrisoarea deschisă adresată preşedintelui Ion Iliescu şi ministrului Culturii 50 de arheologi şi istorici din ţară au specificat: “Descoperirile făcute în cadrul programului de cercetare Alburnus Maior demonstrează că ne aflăm în faţa unui patrimoniu naţional de importanţă majoră care se înscrie în patrimoniul comun european şi mondial.Apreciind că ansamblul de vestigii antice Alburnus Maioreste unic în peisajul arheologic românesc, considerăm necesară propunerea de clasare ca ansamblu arheologic (cf legea 422/2001 art 3,b) în Lista monumentelor istorice, precum şi includerea sa între zonele arheologice de interes naţional prioritar (legea 378,art 2,g, în completarea listei anexe) şi considerăm ca îndreptăţită solicitarea de a-l include în patrimoniul arheologic protejat european şi mondial” (vezi revista „22”, nr 667 din 16-22 dec 2002).

Care ar fi fost situaţia dacă domnul academician Theodorescu, ministrul Culturii, ar fi ascultat colegii, cercetători ai Institutelor Academiei Române şi nu ar fi trecut în tabăra Gold Corporation împreună cu cele două comisii de „specialitate” restructurate ca să servească fără abatere nevoilor firmei. Cum era să fi dat miniştrii culturii M. Muscă, Paleologu, Kelemen importanţă proiectului privind declararea „Ţării Moţilor peisaj cultural evolutiv UNESCO, în primejdie”, agreat de ICOMOS şi UNESCO unde a ajuns fără susţinerea Statului interesat. Cine să îşi imagineze în lume că statul NU este interesat să-şi conserve identitatea şi monumentele care i-o definesc?

Ce conştiinţă profesională şi ce respect de sine şi de atribuţiile funcţiei pe care au onoarea să o acupe au ministrul Culturii şi cel al Mediului din acest guvern, când iniţiază un proiect de lege în favoarea companiei RMGC care „salvează” patrimoniul cultural deşi reprezentanţii firmei au zis repetat că nu sunt instituţie de binefacere. Pe 27 august, "Guvernul a aprobat acest proiect de lege care, potrivit procedurii, va trebui adoptat de Parlament. Principalele măsuri propuse în proiectul de lege sunt: Aprobarea Acordului privind unele măsuri aferente exploatării minereurilor auro-argentifere din perimetrul Roşia Montană; ce nu spune comunicatul guvernului este că Legea prevede declararea proiectului ca fiind de utilitate publică şi de interes naţional deosebit, mandatarea unor entităţi publice să aducă la îndeplinire unele măsuri aferente exploatării minereurilor auro-argentifere din perimetrul Roşia Montana, modificarea unor acte normative privitoare la expropieri şi autorizaţii de construcţie.

În primul rând vor schimba Legea minelor 85/2003, art 11 prin care de la acea dată nici o exploatare minieră nu se putea iniţia acolo unde există. Şi numai miniştrii Culturii şi, acum, ai comisiei parlamentare nu au vrut să vadă masivul Cârnic, masivul Orlea cu mina vizitabilă din 1970, templele cu altarele votive in situ, necropolele cu mii de morminte similare cu singurul ceva mai bogat, ce va fi „salvat” căci nu are aur dedesubt!
După ce a iniţiat împreună cu dna Plumb acest proiect de lege, care în fapt dă mână liberă distrugerii planificate a mediului şi patrimoniului de la Roşia Montană şi Bucium, profesorul Daniel Barbu a făcut o deplasare „de informare la firma” pe care o asimilează cu interesul poporului român la beneficiul exploatării zăcămintelor auro-argintifere ce îi aparţin.

Membrii Comisiei pentru Unesco la Roşia Montana au făcut şi ei deplasarea ca să acopere în faţa românilor pactul semnat de guvern cu firma Gabriel Resources şi RMGC. Îşi ascund mârşava trădare a rostului lor în numita Comisie, dacă nu şi în Parlamentul (ales de pe urma manifestaţiilor din iarna 2012) în spatele semnăturilor primarilor sponsorizaţi de Investitorul care în schimbul banilor le impune conduita. Primarii se opun acceptării Roşiei Montane ca patrimoniu mondial; au ei căderea să aprecieze valoarea inestimabilă a vestigiilor unei întregi istorii a tehnicii de exploatarea a aurului? Au ei capacitatea să conştientizeze profitul pe termen lung al dezvoltării turismului ca urmare a înscrierii printre cele mai excepţionale situri din lume. Rostul unui om de cultură, temporar ministru al Culturii, poate fi să se încovoaie în faţa incompetenţei, dacă nu şi corupţiei care stă la baza scrisorii de respingere a valorii excepţionale a Alburnus Maior.

Exploatarea minieră va dura doar 16 ani şi comunităţile lor vor alege alţi primari până să se dezmeticească cu ce s-au ales din dezvoltarea mineritului cu cianuri!

La Zürich, în primăvară, cu cinism, dl. Tim Wood, directorul executiv la Denver Gold Group, gazda European Gold Forum, a afirmat că ”Guvernele sunt în situaţia unui cerşetor care nu are de ales”.
Probabil cu asta ne-am ales după ce am sperat că vorbele angajează pe cei ce ne cer votul. Sfântă naivitate!
Românii au dreptul să pună doar la 4 ani ştampila, apoi sunt reprezentanţii lui care fac jocurile, susţinuţi de reprezentanţii UE, la fel de responsabili şi ei faţă de popoarele lor....

Cum să crezi că parlamentul va mişca în front când i se spune că este interesul naţional în joc; cine îşi va bate capul să analizeze obiectiv lucrurile. Guvernul va fi cel responsabil, el a făcut propunerea legislativă.
Pentru maximum 5,2 miliarde lei, un sfert din împrumutul prăpădit de guvernele Boc!, guvernul va lăsa generaţiile viitoare, pe propriii copii, fără un peisaj cultural unic, fără aurul la care ar avea şi ei dreptul. Sau poate că RMGC a făcut deja asigurări de sponsorizare a strămutării acestor copii în Canada sau Barbados...
Ministrul implicat în protecţia patrimoniului cultural de la Roşia îşi bate joc de noi sau consideră că nimeni în afară de dl Rodwell plătit de RMGC nu cunoaşte criteriile de înscriere în Lista patrimoniului mondial, şi afirmă că “dacă ceea ce am văzut astăzi (n.red.: în cadrul vizitei efectuate marţi la Roşia Montană) va continua şi vom avea cu adevărat circa 30 de kilometri de galerie romană, medievală şi tereziană conservaţi, cele 120 de clădiri care sunt destinate să fie conservate vor fi restaurate, situl va avea un aspect urbanistic împrospătat şi restituit, cred că peste circa 7-10 ani într-adevăr vom putea cu foarte mari şanse să facem un proiect de înscriere pe Lista Tentativă UNESCO. Aşa cum arată situl acum nu avem nicio şansă”, (http://www.agerpres.ro/media/index.php/cultura/item/217476-Barbu-despre-situl-Rosia-Montana-Acum-nu-avem-nicio-sansa-sa-fie-inscris-pe-Lista-Tentativa-UNESCO.html). Criteriile de integritate, autenticitate nu vor mai exista după ce exploatarea decretată acum de interes naţional va distruge TOATE GALERIILE ROMANE DE VALOARE UNICĂ DIN masivele CÂRNIC şi ORLEA!

La fel de instruit în noţiunile cu care operează legislaţia UNESCO se poate observa şi în propunerea ministrului culturii de a crea un “Parc Arheologic Naţional (SIC!) care să cuprindă Sarmisegetuza Regia (face parte din monumentele UNESCO laolaltă cu alte cetăţi dacice, prin grija aceluiaşi ministru I. Caramitru) şi Sarmisegetuza Ulpia Traiana (niciodată nu a fost pe lista tentativă UNESCO). Dificultatea va consta în faptul că o suprafaţă foarte mare se va suprapune peste Parcul Naţional Retezat (oare?)...şi ar fi benefică asocierea Roşiei Montane cu acest proiect împreună cu zona arheologică de la Săcărâmb (comuna Certej - absolut necercetată, deşi se va “implementa” proiectul DevaGold) şi Muzeul Aurului din Brad” . (Comisia permanentă comună a Camerei Deputaţilor şi Senatului pentru relaţia cu UNESCO, sinteza şedinţei din 25 iunie 2013)

Voi, ROMÂNI, veţi fi cei care, pe lângă miliardele împrumutate sub oblăduirea tătucului Băsescu, veţi gestiona şi tot dezastrul post mega-exploatării din Roşia Montana - Bucium (şi fiţi fără grijă, şi din restul Cadrilaterului Aurului!). Cu ocazia asta rezolvăm şi problema acelui nucleu de Moţi care au făcut răzmeliţi peste răzmeliţi din Evul Mediu încoace („bolşevicii” pe care i-a înfierat jucătorul preşedinte la Roşia Montană, mai an).

Poate mă înşel şi veţi apăra dreptul vostru şi al copiilor voştri (eu nu am!, ca să spun ai noştri, dar ce fac, fac pentru ai ţării!).

Cineva trebuie să răspundă că din 2000 a făcut doar jocul unei firme care îşi închipuie că face legea în România. Cineva trebuie să răspundă că nu sunt luate în considerare din studiile făcute de experţii români şi străini dacă nu conchid cu axioma că exploatarea în suprafaţă cu cianurare este în avantajul exclusiv al României, pentru care se „sacrifică” marii acţionari din Gabriel Resources - RMGC.

Pe primul loc ar fi Agenţia Naţională de Resurse Minerale, apoi cei care au dat PUG în repetate rânduri, deşi au fost anulate în justiţie ca ilegale; cei care au dat avizele de descărcare de sarcină arheologică pentru tot ce a cerut Investitorul, indiferent de valoarea excepţionala a fiecărui element, dar mai cu seamă ca peisaj minier din preistorie până în ziua de azi.

Mai suntem un POPOR sau doar o populaţie înfometată după reformele celor ce s-au aranjat de la „revoluţie” încoace?

Dr. Ioana Bogdan Cătăniciu

Sean again, I'm afraid

Spring transhumance officially begins on 1st April, which this year fell two weeks before Orthodox Easter.  Most farmers want to get their lambs into the shops just before Easter because it is the only time during the year that Romanians eat lamb meat in large quantities.  Ghita delayed his spring walk because there was so little grass, but he didn't need to rush back home, because he had made his own arrangements with individual meat traders.  Ghita either did not know or would not tell me where his lambs went, but he was adamant that his methods of raising them were more humane than intensive farming.  

Going straight from the farm where lambing had only just finished, to Cluj where I celebrated Easter with friends, the connections between the two were unavoidable.  In Christian imagery, the lamb is a symbol of Christ's sacrifice and images of The Lamb of God abound.   Most of us are so used to the link that we don't bat an eyelid when it comes to eating the animals, no matter how or why they have been killed.  Contemplating silent paintings and carvings of The Lamb in the surroundings of an Orthodox or Reformed church is less devastating than spending time with the creatures themselves when you know that they have only been bred for the butcher's knife.  It took two days for me to start getting fond of an individual lamb - it was Sean, whose mother had rejected him at birth - and I wasn't the only one to have favourites. 

Of course all livestock farmers have to come to terms with the fact of death and do not see a paradox between caring for their animals and killing them.  Since spending time so close to the realities of raising animals for profit, I've got a lot more time for charities like Compassion in World Farming and campaigns to reduce the amount of time during which animals are transported live to abattoirs.  In Romania, small-holders who raised animals for their own food and for limited sales in local markets used to kill them at home.  I have never witnessed this at first hand but have been told that they did not stun them first, but surely it is better to slaughter an animal quickly, rather than subject it to the torture of travelling long distances in horrific conditions?  

In Romania and Poland, horses are often transported overland to abattoirs in southern Italy.  It takes up to three days, often without rests or water and if the horses kick each other or have other accidents, they are not treated.  Ironically since the 'financial crisis' Italian meat traders have been buying fewer horses because of the high cost of fuel.  World Horse Welfare reports that the numbers of horses driven live to abattoirs has halved during the past ten years, thanks in large part to its protests.  But that still leaves some 60,000 equines a year who undergo the unnecessary ordeal of being packed into transporters and driven to their deaths in a state of panic.  The numbers of other animals must be far higher.  Would it not be better to send them away when they are already dead?  If it is all a matter of refrigeration costs, surely there would be huge long-term benefits of killing animals close to where they were raised?  Ghita told me you can taste the difference in an animal that has been kept on limited grazing and killed when it is afraid - if only for the pleasure of gourmet carnivores, the meat is not nearly as good to taste (and therefore less nutritious) and it smells of adrenalin. 

Looking for figures to back up my arguments, I found this extract, reproduced on the British Texel Sheep Society's website from a French farming magazine:  "According to an article published in the French Pâtre magazine, Romanian sheep meat production could rise by 30% by 2015, of which 90% would be exported, mostly live (Greece, Italy, Spain, Middle East). It reckons there are 3 m. people owning sheep in Romania. There are 4.5 m. ha of natural pasture. The largest farm owns 10,000 ewes."

An on-line advertisement for the Carpatic Lamb Slaughter House which opened near Bucharest in 2006 tells us:  "Romania, although it has the third European sheep livestock in size (roughly 9,000,000 sheep), it hasn't had almost any sheep meat export activity. This was due to lack of slaughtering facilities able to fully comply with the European standards. Until recently, almost all the sheep meat export was done by exporting only living animals (roughly 2,000,000 sheep/year)."

And, looking at this link - http://www.airyolland.co.uk/story_romania_summer_trip.htm - it seems that some British farmers are keen to 'improve' Romania's sheep breeds, to make them heavier in meat, so that they can export British rams.  Romanian farms have already begun to introduce German rams.  This is from High Airyolland Farm and 'the sheep farmer who likes to write stories not a writer that likes to keep sheep': "A major part of the sheep industry in Romania revolves around the production of soft cheese made from the milk from their Turcana breed of sheep.  The Turcana is the most numerous sheep in the country numbering approximately six million.  It’s a hill type which has been bred for milk production so, as you would expect, the breed has taken on the physical characteristics of a dairy animal.  Now with the traditional on-farm methods of production and manufacture coming under pressure from Brussels a lurch towards meat production has started.  The professor of animal production at a major teaching university in the town of Timisoara told us.  'We must start to improve our sheep by hybridisation'.  The professor, who has seen attempts to make improvements like this fail in the past, still sees the future of the sheep meat industry in his country to be reliant on the benefit that the vigour and greater weight gain a cross of some sort will produce.'   

That's all very well except that the fatter animals are less well suited to Romania's alpine terrain.  Being less hardy may mean in the long run that they need more specialised and veterinary care.   At the moment, as Airyolland indicates, Romanians eat relatively little lamb and mutton and the sheep are bred mainly for milk to make cheese.  Efforts are being made to turn the various cheese types into speciality brands, and for example, you can buy cas (pronounced 'cash'), telemea, branza de burduf 'from Sibiu' (meaning it's from Marginimea Sibiului) in specialised cheese shops in Bucharest's Crangasi Market.

Since the 1989 revolution, the high prices which Ceausescu's regime had granted Romanian farmers for their milk, meat and wool disappeared.  As the country plunged into uncertainty all the emphases changed, few of us realising that the medieval farming methods which many British visitors find so entrancing to look at had come about relatively recently partly as a result of the fact that many of the country's tractors disappeared 'overnight' after Ceausescu's assassination.  I have been told many times that Romania's notoriously bad roads were in fine shape during the 1970s.  Not having been there before 1993, I saw the  horse-drawn, ox-drawn, and donkey-drawn carts as age-old fixtures.

To get a better picture of how Romanian farming has developed as it has, I've found the doctoral theses of researchers like Katy Fox and Michael Pearson very helpful.   Both have studied the effects of EU legislation and Romanian government application of that legislation on subsistence and semi-subsistence farms.  Katy Fox concentrated on farming villages in two adjacent valleys in the county of Arges, in Muntenia.  Michael Pearson, being a solicitor, looked closely at the legal aspects of EU policy-making and how translation from one language to another can pervert its original writers' intentions almost beyond recognition. 

Other facets of Romania's sheep farming business have floated to the surface of my research: shortly after the 1989 coup, Middle Eastern countries began buying live Romanian lambs, Syria being one of the largest importers; after 1989, Romanian sheep farmers began selling their fleeces to Turkish truck drivers who were on their way home from western Europe.   Apparently the wool was turned into building insulation, but the washing process, carried out with detergents in Romanian rivers and streams, has polluted the water. 

But to return to Airyolland, as he - or could it be a she? - says, a lot of younger Romanian sheep farmers have moved their animals to lowland areas such as the Banat and Dobrogea where they can graze all year round without moving long distances between pastures.  What this will mean for 'traditional' Carpathian mountain farms is anybody's guess - there are EU organisations and NGOs which exist to support the small (ie subsistence and semi-subsistence) hill farms because it's accepted wisdom that extensive grazing by animals such as sheep, goats, cows and horses promotes biodiversity which in turn is good for air and water quality.  You only have to look at the species-rich hay meadows of the Pogany Havas region and others to see that for yourself.  But the relationship between farming as a business, people's need for food, and the perception of environmental dangers is like a football being kicked about by thousands of different teams.  All I can do is try to understand the different pressures - and vested interests - to continue reading and looking, talking to farmers, researchers and, God love them, officials. 

April Fool's Death

Gheorghe skinned the lamb without saying a word, and now he stood facing me with bloody hands, the carcase lying at his feet. 

E trecut.  

Over and done with.  The five-day-old berbec had run into the wheels of a goods train two hours before.  I was supposed to be in charge, and I had expected – deserved - a tirade.  I had volunteered to look after 21  of Gheorghe’s sheep for a couple of hours while he was busy elsewhere, and he had, hesitantly, left me looking after a score of mânzari (ewes which had given birth) and their young.  I could see that he was torn between his doubts about the wisdom of leaving an inexperienced person on their own with his animals, and wanting to give me a chance.   

I had felt so smart, a real shepherdess.  Poţi sa le lasi acolo, unde iarba e mai proaspata; nu o sa trec linea.  Gheorghe with his slight lisp, his air of mastery belied by his unfamiliarity with foreigners, had told me that grazing the sheep by the railway track would be alright; even during the winter there had not been enough moisture in the ground to grow grass and now, on 1st April, there was so little decent fodder anywhere that they needed every available blade. 

Like most of Romania, this quiet corner of north-west Transylvania hadn’t seen serious rain for nine months.  In spite of heavy snowfall in January and February, the ground was parched, and the hills were the colour of dun and khaki.  They won’t cross the line, he had said, they’ll stay with the most succulent grass.   

Of course I should have reacted quicker but as it was, I just stood there, in disbelief as the tiny male lamb passed for a split second within reach and headed straight for the thundering, lumbering train, five feet away.  He ran beside it for yards, while I followed clumsily trying to grab him.  But I was paralysed.  Horrified, I saw him falter and his limbs flail beside the grinding metal.  Then he disappeared altogether. 

There had been plenty of warning; the siren from the nearby level crossing had wailed for three or four minutes in advance.  The train vanished as inexorably as it had come, and I imagined the driver cursing me – he had stood on his horn, and disentangled the soft and twitching limbs.  The lamb had fallen in a crumpled heap between two sleepers.  I cradled him in my arms.   His blood dripped onto my sleeve.

Stricken with sadness and guilt, I hustled the ewes and their offspring away from the ditch by the railway track.  They seemed unaware that something catastrophic had happened to one of their tribe.  There was no traffic on the narrow country road which ran beside the line and I harangued them across it up the low hill which separated us from the village. 

I couldn’t believe I had let the lamb get hit.  Every now and then a chill wind ruffled his ears, mocking my hopes that he would come to again if I held him long enough.  My tears dripped all over him, willing him to live, but he did not move.  His eyes had milked over and his neck hung limp.  He remained warm long after he had died.

Gheorghe had been busy with arrangements for the 200-km walk to his summer grasslands high in the southern Carpathian Mountains.  He had said it would be OK to let the sheep stay near the railway; because that was where the best grass was, and although he was still feeding them on maize they were terribly short of fresh food.  

As the minutes ticked by and no-one came - Gheorghe had only left me half an hour before and I had no mobile phone - the flock grazed on regardless.  I had to quash my urge to run and hide.  The sheep cropped the dry spikes with a frenzied nibbling.  Driven by hunger, they had no time for sentiment.  

It wasn't hard to identify the dead lamb’s mother.  She was the only one who was seriously perturbed.  She ran here and there, calling for her baby, sniffing alien lambs and rejecting them with an impatient jerk of her head or stamp of her hoof.  I watched her with the sickening realisation that her distress was a thousand times worse than mine.  What should I do?  Eventually, I put her lamb down on the grass and retreated.  I was still in shock myself but I thought, She has to know.  How else will she accept its disappearance?  

A long spell passed before she had the courage to come close.  She walked forward uncertainly and then suddenly changed her mind, running away from me as well as the small white heap on the ground.  Then she came back again, her muzzle outstretched in fearful tenderness, inching closer, not wanting to believe.  Then again, turning her wary, accusing eyes on me, she would rush away to the safety of her sisters, unable to cope. 

It seemed years before Gheorghe’s van pulled up at the derelict farm where he and his hired shepherds had lived for the past five months, while over-wintering a thousand long-haired Ţurcana sheep.  The air was so clear that even though it was a quarter of a mile away, I could see every movement as he busied himself in the yard.  Agonised because I couldn’t shout loudly enough, I followed him with my eyes, anticipating his sense of anger and loss, dreading the moment of confession.

As I was standing there, impatient to leave the sheep in safe hands, Marcel came up beside me.  Marcel was one of Gheorghe’s hired shepherds.  He said he was fourteen and that he had run away from school because it bored him.  Marcel was half man, half child: gawky as a lamb but street wise.  His dark brown eyes, innocent and clever, were set in a flawless skin; he was as ready to pounce as to submit.  He loved laughing, and would yell his carelessness to the world, heedless of the outrage he caused.  Life should be a breeze to a kid of fourteen. 

I was carrying the lamb again.  Marcel looked askance at it, screwing up his eyes against the sun.  Ce s-a întâmplat? When I told him what had happened, stumbling over the Romanian words, his looked disdainful, but said, D’you want me to take it?  I shook my head; I wanted to face Gheorghe myself.  Fighting against an awful, cold, indifference, I walked down the cracked slope, past the balance well whose sun-bleached arm looked as though it were grasping a sword of judgment, and into the farm. 

A split-second stab of shock, then Gheorghe put his emotions aside.  Is it dead?  He took the lamb from me; I didn’t want to let it go.  He said, Nobody slows down, neither cars nor trains.  I knew it wasn’t the driver’s fault.  Gheorghe had the lamb by its hind legs so that its head dangled.  Where is its mother?  I pointed dumbly behind us to where Marcel’s slender form stood outlined against the late afternoon sun, the ewes scattered around him, but not too far. 

Gheorghe took a folding knife from one of his pockets and set about removing the lamb’s skin.  He slit the soft tissue under the belly, peeled the skin forwards from the tail end forwards, and yanked it expertly over the ghastly head.  As he pulled the curly fleece from the lamb’s skull I saw the extent of the damage, a bloody mess where two hours ago there had been a bright and frolicking eye.  Finally Gheorghe cut the skin away from the legs.  Several of his dogs - two large white hairy Carpathian ciobănesti and a Scottie-sized, dark grey heeler called a câine de întors, crept towards the enticing smell.  They shrank back again when their master kicked out at them, roaring Cuşti-mă! 

Throwing the body into the tumbledown wattle-walled farm house, Gheorghe took the skin across the yard to a straw-bedded lean-to where the latest newborns and their dams were sheltering from the cold.  Some of the ewes had twins, and Gheorghe grabbed of them by the scruff of its neck.  Fitting the lambskin like a tight football jersey over the surprised infant’s head, he tied the leg flaps in place with some red wool that he happened to have about him, tucked the replacement lamb under his arm and went into the barn next door.  Two ewes were suckling sickly babies in the dark; one of them was snug in a pen that Gheorghe had made for individual sheep and their lambs by fencing off a corner with wooden palettes.  He dropped the substitute infant into the next door slot.  The other ewe was a first-time mother who didn’t want anything to do with her off-spring.  Gheorghe had tied her to a feed trough so that the two-day old lamb could get at her teats.  He swore violently at the reluctant mum, letting his stress show for the first time since I had brought him the dead lamb.  Seeing my discomfort, he threw me another peace-offering: Nu ai fost primul.  I hadn’t been the first, and regrettably, I probably wouldn’t be the last.  Then he strode off to his van and drove back up the hill, bumping over the grass to collect the bereft and bewildered animal.     

A Romanian Sean

Looking back to my time on the road between 30th March and 6th April:

Sometimes a ewe will reject a lamb, or she may die while the lamb is still suckling, and then the youngsters need extra care.  At times like those it was touching to see how kind even tough professional shepherds could be.  

Ghita split his flock into two halves for easier handling and I spent most of my time with one of the halves, which was led the two shepherds, Iosif and Andrei.  Several lambs had been born in the few days before 2nd April when we set out from the winter farm.  There was one in our half of the flock whose mother would have nothing to do with him.  It was pathetic to see the tiny animal stumbling in vain after his dam who fled as far from him as she could, her long Turcana fleece flouncing like a pantomime dame in her hurry to escape.

As we climbed steeply out of the valley away from the farm on the first day of the walk, Andrei was bringing up the rear, noticed the lamb's struggles and picked him up in his arms. Iosif was far ahead of us in the van, and didn't notice.  He looked more hard-bitten than Andrei and I thought he would object to any form of molly-coddling but as we tramped relentlessly up and down yet more hills, my muscles screaming with the effort, Iosif too took pity on the lamb.  It was a pretty matter of fact sort of compassion: Iosif either grabbed him by the scruff or hoisted him off the ground by his forelegs like a rag, but at times he too could be seen cradling the infant in his arms to make sure he wasn't left behind. 

Being an orphan himself - he had grown up in a children's home - Andrei's sympathy with the vulnerable lamb was especially understandable.  For the next three days, Andrei and I took it in turns to carry micutul (the little one).  I enjoyed playing nurse; it gave me something to do and helped to keep me warm: the weather fluctuated more and more but it was often close to freezing.

Every few hours, Andrei caught the negligent ewe and either wrestled her to the ground, upending her like a sack of potatoes, or tying her to a tree so the lamb had a chance to drink.  Sometimes Andrei, Iosif or Ghita got so cross with the mother that they slapped her around the head, a treatment I thought guaranteed to sour her for life.

When Andrei asked me what name we should give the lamb, there was no contest: it had to be Sean.  So for the next few days, Sean he became, identified by his particular markings - it was surprising how quickly I came to recognise the black patterns on his face, ears and legs - but also by the piece of red wool which Andrei tied around his neck and his growing propensity to sit down when either of us approached.  At times like those, he could be bleating or not, according to how exhausted he was, but he always managed to look more lost and helpless than the others, as he no doubt felt.  He was certainly the smallest of the lambs in that group

Sean became very attached to Andrei and vice versa.  The lamb began to follow the young shepherd like a dog, and Andrei would cuddle him and kiss him on the nose.  Knowing Sean's likely fate, I had the mad idea of buying him for Andrei so that he could start a flock of his own.  But I didn't how much he would cost nor how Ghita would react to such a request.  And when I mentioned it, I could see that Andrei wasn't sure he wanted to be lumbered with an extra mouth to feed at this stage of his life.

On the fourth day of our trek, a minor miracle happened: Sean's recalcitrant mother changed her mind.  She started looking for him, bleating when he wasn't with her, and best of all, let him suckle without being tied.  But Sean still liked to be cosseted.  It came to the point with Iosif told Andrei he must stop carrying the lamb at all.  The animal needed exercise to develop his muscles if he was to have any chance of surviving the long march home.   'Don't do it, Andrei, do you hear?  It's not good for him.  Look at him sitting there like little Lord Fauntleroy.  He'll be calling for a taxi next!'

    

Ioana's Romanian Easter

From Cluj, today:  This is my first Easter in Romania and although I'm not a regular church-goer, I'm looking forward to the Orthodox service at midnight.  My friend Ioana tells me that the Easters of long ago were much more exciting.  She grew up in Deva during the 1940s and her family had a large house and garden, long since obliterated by Communist housing blocks.  If 12pm sounds late, Ioana remembers going to church at 4am.  As the first glimmer of dawn lit the sky, she, her family and the rest of the congregation would follow the parish priest in procession three times around the church.  Everyone carried a candle.  Up to this point the church was closed and to gain entry, the priest beat on the doors three times. Someone inside asked 'Who is there?'  The answer was 'Imperatul Maririi' which translates roughly as 'The Emperor of the Highest', and the people entered. Ioana says it was too hard for her to stand throughout the entire service and the family didn't stay long.  When they got home, a feast was waiting for them, marking the end of the traditional 40 day fast.  As the night evaporated into morning Ioana and her sister searched the garden for painted eggs and other presents. Ioana says one of her most poignant memories of those early Easters is of listening the privighetori, which is what Romanians call nightingales.       

Wolves

After what has seemed like an eternity, last week I finally got out on the road with a flock of Romanian sheep.  I was in Salaj judet, also known by its traditional name of Tara Silvaniei, in the Eastern Carpathian foothills about 200 km north of the home farm. The ewes, rams and now their lambs had been over-wintering here since November.  They were about to start their six-week trek across the Transylvanian plateau back to the Cindrel Massif. 

Though it was not nearly as bad as in eastern Romania, there was a lot of snow here in January and February.  Apart from the rare treat of a shower and a change of clothes, the shepherds had lived outside day and night during most of that period.

My host was the 29 year old Ghita, a nickname for Gheorghe, and together with three hired shepherds and at least 1000 animals (including ten dogs, and six donkeys which carried our food and other equipment) I walked with him for six days at the start of his spring transhumance.

By the time I arrived on 30th March the snow had long gone; it had left no visible traces except deep cracks in the pastures, and was no help to the grass at all.  The hills were dun-coloured but during the week I was there, willows began to flower like ghosts materialising in a pale yellow mist.  Yellow, orange and red dogwood branches stood out against the brown and the apple trees were full of mistletoe.  It too was in flower; some of it glowing with acid yellow florets.  In the woods a solitary orchid known as The Monk poked beautiful pink and blue petals and toxic looking leaves above thick carpets of dead oak leaves.

The sky was often overcast but even then, the landscapes were magnificent: we wandered in large loops over land that varied from ploughed strips to burnt stubble, from marshy valley bottoms to sturdy young forests through which the sun, if it shone, made dappled shadows on the bronze coloured leaf mulch.  We walked on soil that varied from chalk white to dark chocolate with amazing shades of ochre, rust and pink in between.  No wonder they call Romania a land of milk and honey.  Pity about the guys at the top though.     

At night we slept around a campfire - or rather I did; the others took it in turns to keep watch throughout the night in case of wolves, robbers and other threats, and they got very little sleep at all.  Catnaps during the day were the only chance they had to catch up on shuteye. I began to understand the typical stance of a Romanian shepherd as he leans on his bata (staff); he may well be dozing on his feet. 

Having spent so much time trying to join a transhumant flock when the time came I wasn't ready for it.  Like a new army recruit, I had to fall in with the shepherds' routine or lump it: if I overslept my covers were yanked off me unceremoniously.  We set off at 6 or 6.30 am - later on it would be earlier - and kept walking with very short breaks until 8 or 9pm.  No breakfast, not even coffee.  A slurp of water if we had the chance.  We were lucky if we got a mid-day meal - don't expect room service on transhumance and do take hard rations!  But what did I expect: this was a serious enterprise and there was no room for slackers.  With Ghita, his sheep's needs came first, last, and much of the way in between. 

So much happened during the eight days I spent with Ghita and his crew that I haven't had time to absorb it. What follows is an extract from the end of my trip, which I was tempted to with the end of Hardy's The Return of the Native, which I read just before coming to Romania.  But Egdon Heath is a poor substitute for upland Salaj. 

After months without rain, on Friday, the fifth day of our walk, skies darkened.  It had been scorching since 10.30am but around 3pm scowling clouds gathered right overhead, promising a dramatic change.  I was grabbing a rest on a steep hillside while watching Ghita separate his flocks into two groups, so that the strongest animals would be in one lot and the weakest in another.  Catching sight of the black smudge overhead he gave a shout and did a little triumphal dance.  He was desperate for wet stuff.

Ghita wasn't disappointed.  Within 15 minutes the premature summer had vanished and we were in the midst of a tremendous storm.  We had the full works - thunder that rolled and crashed like Kudu drums and lightning that rent the heavens like tearing silk.  And with depressing speed everything I had on was drenched - it had been so hot in the morning that I'd packed my waterproofs deep in a donkey bag.  There was no time to dig them out: the shepherds couldn't take time off to dress and we had to keep moving for the sheep's sake.  And did they move.  I trudged after them in my squelching boots and the men in varying degrees of stoicism and misery, trying to help keep the seething mass of fleeces on legs to a path we could control without preventing them from getting the nutrition they wanted. Not for the first time I wondered what the hell I was doing here.  It was 9pm before Ghita found an appropriate place to camp.  We had to have water to cook with and although there was plenty falling on us, potable water wasn't easy to collect.  And still the rain came, interrupted every three or four minutes by drum rolls and flashes that forked the sky.  Some were so close they made our faces go as pink as blushing girls. 

After 'parking' the flock in a dell surrounded by oak and beech woods - squint at it, and it could have been in rural Leicestershire - all ten dogs exploded into paroxysms, and shot off into the dusk.  Iosif (40) and Andrei (22) were closest to me at the time, and they shouted one word, 'Lupi!' (Wolves).  Gripping their staffs they both disappeared in pursuit of the noise while I stayed close to the solitary oak tree we had chosen to sleep under.

The sheep, still divided into two separate groups were within 50 yards of each other, as close as they could be without getting mixed up.  They were remarkably unmoved, I thought, scanning them with my torch.  I was rewarded with the reflections of 1500 pairs of eyes fixed like green stars in the black night. But although they stayed put, their bleats showed that they were on red alert. 

Somehow, with all the alarms and excursions, someone managed to gather wood for a fire, get it going and make food in the smoke-blackened cauldron.

Wolves and rain apart, I was in turmoil over the animals' welfare.  I never knew how the men would react to the suffering of the creatures they had in their charge, fearing their cruelty but as often as not, witnessing deep and immediate compassion.  On one of his excursions away from the flock, Ghita had brought a cojoc for me because I had said I was cold at night.  Tonight the heavy sheepskin cloak was needed elsewhere: one of the ewes had lost nearly all her fleece during the winter and he carried her to the fireside in his arms, flung the cojoc around her and a plastic sheet on top of that.  For the next two hours she sat there, invisible in her tent except for her breathing which came steadily more easily; we could see she was still alive by the plastic rising and falling. 

Cries of 'wolf' continued for the next two to three hours and meanwhile it was still pouring.  Hugging the fire as though it were a lifebelt as well as the only way to dry my sodden clothes, at one point Iosif nudged my shoulder, 'Lup la deal' ('A wolf, up there on the hill.')  I searched the gloom in the direction he pointed to.  'Uita acolo, nu vezi?'  But I didn't see it.  My glasses were dripping - forget contact lenses! - and the only shape I could make out was a moving something a hundred yards away; it might have been a wolf or a figment.

The scare continued all night and I was the only with time to doss down: every few minutes the dogs broke out into another uproar and the night sky was bright with the crossbeams of four powerful head torches. They were like antiaircraft lights but no-one was going to sound an all clear.

For most of that night, Ghita was nowhere to be seen: he was rushing around, checking and rechecking the sheep. At 1.20 am while I was buried in my bivvi trying to be oblivious, Marcel, a 14 year old Rrom who had run away from school to become a shepherd, raced from the woods to the fire screaming, 'A luat un magar!' (It's taken a donkey!' It hadn't; one of the donkeys had either slipped over or was rolling.)  Ghita was furious; his stress levels were at breaking point.  That night more than any other we felt the lash of his tongue.  He was like a captain at sea in a hurricane. 

I might have dropped off peacefully after that but for the aforementioned Marcel who at 2.10 am yelled right in my ear, 'Tanti, tanti, umbla ursi!!!' ('Auntie, auntie, there are bears about!!!'). There weren't of course - we were too low down - but I didn't know that and his electrifying news got me out of bed in seconds flat. That was the last zizz I had till morning. 

No sheep were lost to wolves but during the downpour one of the ewes slipped down a steep bank into a stream and drowned.  Marcel and I found her in the morning by chance while taunting each other about wild beasts in the woods, when the rain had eased and we were off again on the quest for grass.  Ghita's anguish was palpable; he spoke little when upset, and after he and Marcel had hauled the corpse up onto the bank by its horns, and after Ghita had kicked it with his boot, wobbling her sides to see if there was really no life left, he cut off her yellow tag and turning away with his face turned down, he abandoned her for the crows, the wolves and the worms.  It meant another motherless lamb to feed and protect; another source of income gone; another living thing that he had nurtured, dead. 

My jeans, boots and socks were sopping and freezing even after the roasting they got over the camp fire; during the rest of the day I had to make a decision, if it was time to withdraw I had to leave now.  I wanted to rethink my equipment; I was afraid I was an extra responsibility; I didn't want to get ill.

A lot depended on the weather, and on how much food there was and how often.  When it was there it was wonderful: mamaliga, telemea and branza de burduf, delicious soups, and slanina all cooked in a cauldron or grilled on an open fire. Purple onions, coarse white bread, the occasional apple or piece of chocolate.   Water, when we had it, came from wells, in varying degrees of purity.  A great deal of grease and salt, no such thing as five fruit a day.  Not my usual fare, but at the time it tasted ambrosial.

Ghita can't afford to up sticks and leave though I'm sure he sometimes feels like it: he faces another four to five weeks on the road until he can reach the relative safety of his home village and enclosed fields.  Soon after that - when he has decided which of the lambs will be sold - there will be other dangers and hardships: he'll be off to the summer pastures 1000 metres above Jina in the Cindrel Massif.

 Gadina (monsters) are everywhere: as for the immediate future, he will often travel at night so as to avoid traffic in town centres; he will have to cross railway lines and main roads braving drivers who think they have priority; he will have to face angry farmers who don't want sheep on their land and keep his animals from trampling new crops.  And last but not least he'll have to rely on his hired men who may get fed up and leave him stranded. 

I stayed until my things got so soaked I could bear it no longer.  My bivvi bag, bought from eBay as almost new, ex-army Gortex and rainproof, wasn't.

It was an incredible, extraordinary experience, a huge test of human and animal endurance.  My strength - and sometimes my patience - were stretched to the limit and I never want to eat lamb again.

If I had time to sort my gear I would go back to the flock but my time has run out.  A return visit will have to wait for the autumn or next spring. Who knows if Ghita will go on the road again; if I were him I might shrink from the idea but he's made of stronger stuff, is much younger, has been doing this since he was a child and more importantly than all of the above, it's the way he makes his living. While I was with him and the other shepherds I saw how simply they live, how inadequate their gear is, how much responsibility they have.  Other people might despise shepherds for being uneducated - which some certainly are - but while I was with them, their courage, team work and stoicism struck me as little short of heroic.  They were also very courteous towards me, and it can't have been easy to nake allowances for an ignorant foreigner, let alone one from a different gender.  True, there were grumbles about pay, conditions and the rest.  There are no fixed pay rates and each man must negotiate his own fee. Iosif told me that depending on what experiience and responsibilities he has, a hired shepherd may get between 800 and 1200 lei per month.  Iosif said that a sterpar (who looks after the ewes without lambs) gets the most because he has the most responsibility and the hardest life.  Hired shepherds also receive their food, clothing and cigarettes.  The clothes include short wellie boots which most shepherds wear with obiele, thick wool wraps inside rather than socks; they may have anoraks and most have their own cojoace (which cost around 120 Euros new, and I don't know if they are provided).  Compared to my old Swiss hiking boots, their gumboots seemed woefully inadequate and the sight of Marcel lying down on the sopping earth in nothing but a thin wind-sheeter, thin slacks and a thin plastic sheet made me shudder.  But my sources tell me that Ghita pays well in comparison with other bosses.  

Ghita and his men - and his girlfriend who came to his rescue because Marcel went AWOL after I left - are still out there, dealing with the realities of shepherding life while I have retreated to a nice warm flat in Cluj.

My overall impression? A respect and liking for this courageous young man who undertakes an incredible journey twice a year so as to maintain his animals in the most natural conditions he can find, so that the milk and meat they provide will taste really good. Compassion both for him and his shepherds who were great, most of the time, and who had to put up with a lot of hardships and anxieties of their own.  As an animal lover and a carnivore my short walk with transhumant sheep threw my hypocrisy in my face.  Was it that rather than the physical discomfort which has, for the moment, driven me away?  Had Ghita not been the person he is, had the hired shepherds not been so considerate - and all of them were human, and often very funny, if not always humane - and had the landscape not been so breathtaking and the animals so charming, I might have thought the whole thing a waste of time.  But even though there were cons, I wouldn't have missed it for the world.